Missed Message
by silbermoon
Summary: Decepticon Commander Jazz does not believe in fate or chance, but when his spaceship suddenly starts burning around him, he has to call for help - fast. Autobot Commander Prowl has a good orn, that's about to get a lot better.


Beta: Starfire 201

Authors: Silberstreif and Moonwallker

Inspired by prompt from tf_speedwriting on Livejournal; Prompt: _Scenario: Consequences of a missed message_

**_Missed Message_**

The life of repair drones was hard and cruel, punctuated by an often painful and far too soon end. After all, what better shooting target than a drone? Sadly, they did possess a limited sentience which let them lament this fact of their existence often and at length. A certain repair drone on the Decepticon ship Nemesis Nine was no different. Stoically he cleaned the floors and the walls of the rarely used hallways between the storage levels and engine rooms. This was the area of the ship no Cybertronian ever entered, here the drones ruled supreme.

As such F-53 had survived a rather long time among his peers and had developed far enough to recognise his limited future prospects, which was that he would clean this hallway until his destruction. The only question was what would be destroyed first, the ship or his body.

He stopped as he noticed a rather large puddle of dark oil in front of him. Displeased, he began to clean it. Again and again, something dropped on him and he realised that the oil came from above. Despite his rather far maturity as drones go, F-53 was not advanced enough to even start contemplating what might cause this oil leak. Instead, he reacted as he was programmed to: He filed a report.

Suddenly a message appeared in his cortex:

"All available drones are called to help with the loading of energon cubes."

He evaluated his situation. Yes, he was available, nothing here that required his immediate attention. He filled out the rest of the report in haste and sent it, then he hurried to comply with the order. To be late often meant destruction and that he wanted to avoid at any cost. He had learned to like life after all.

Sadly, the drones would only be made aware an orn later that their overseer had changed when they docked to planet Xhyrrus. As a result, the commlines had changed and the report landed in the no-recipient message box on the ship computer which no one would open for the next several millennia.

The little drone didn't know this. And to be truthful, no one else probably cared.

What was unknown to all drones and mechs alike was the small fact that the leak originated from the machine room above the hallway which housed one of six massive ship engines. The plasma generator was running on nothing that had to do with such a crude substance as oil, but the supply system for the cooling system was another matter. Bad craftsmanship and time had weakened a soldered seam and let it break. Slowly but surely the supply system was rusting and breaking down, affecting in turn the cooling system and the engine, the very heart of the ship.

But it was a slow process and the ship left Xhyrrus and later Cybertron and several other planets without a hitch.

In the hallway below, the puddle continued to grow, but the drones never reported it. After all, they all had received the message of the initial report from F-53 and several reports on a single matter was strongly discouraged to keep the bureaucracy down. So the drones continued on their cleaning way, dutifully stepping around the puddle, and later around the whole hallway.

And still, the oil lake grew, while above the engine grew hotter and hotter.

0000

It was unfortunate that the threshold for a full head-on plasma core melting was reached during a stealth mission into Autobot territory. The Decepticon Commander of the ship could only stare in abstract disbelief as suddenly dozens of error messages lightened up every single screen in the command room.

"Engineers!" he called suddenly, visor brightening with his frown. "What the frag is that? Where the Pit did it come from?" He glared at the readings on the screen, pressing a few buttons, before ordering sharply: "Fix it, now!"

The engineers flinched at the rarely used tone and scrambled towards Engine Room Two, which looked more and more likely to explode. And a plasma core explosion in space was something to be avoided at any cost.

The Commander shuttered his optics and sighed as he asked himself what the pit had happened with his engine. An Autobot saboteur maybe? It was possible, he had done the same in the past.

::Sir,:: he received a comm. ::We've found the problem. We can save Engine Two.::

::Good.:: Some of his tension left him. ::And what is exactly the problem?::

::The cooling system... kind of.::

Kind of? One didn't need to be a mech with his skills to know that the engineer was hiding something. But the engine was more important, for now. ::I see. Repair it and then come to me.::

::...yes, Commander Jazz.::

The Decepticon Commander shook his head. Autobot saboteurs, it had to be. Everything else was just too ridiculous.

0000

Inside the engine room, all pit had broken lose. Screaming mechs tried to work on a machine hot enough to melt their very hands just off. The floor itself was becoming sticky and everything around the Engine Room had left the temperature range below 200 degrees well behind. Sparks flew from the area where two engineers were desperately trying to replace the leaking oil pipe.

It was probably inevitable that some of the sparks landed in a small puddle of oil, which promptly caught fire.

"Slag," cursed the engineer next to it and then proceeded to do nothing. Burning oil was still cooler than everything else in the room and no immediate danger.

Or so he thought.

The oil puddle burned and burning drops of it fell through the miniscule hole in the floor to the hallway below, were a veritable 'lake' of oil waited for it. It had grown from a mere puddle into a monster, filling the entire hallway and its neighbours. Slowly it had eaten through locks and doors, spilling into storerooms, cable shafts and everything else it could reach.

The little burning drop hit the lake of oil and suddenly an inferno was unleashed, racing through the ship, hungrily eating everything it came across.

Until it reached the usually well-sealed storage room for energon cubes through a hidden cable shaft too small for drone and mech. Fire leaked into the room, reached a single cube, took it into a loving embrace - and let it explode in a brilliant white burst of pure energy.

The explosion touched its neighbours and just a split second later the whole ship was shaking as the entire section was ripped apart.

A few hallways further down, a drone with the designation F-53 met its lonely end.

0000

Jazz had barely relaxed when he got a message of an unexplainable fire in the lower levels of the ship.

'Fire? What the pit is burning down there?' he thought and sent a few drones to investigate. With numb horror, he could only watch at the monitor as the fire spread - directly to the energon room. Okay, this was not cool. Not cool at all!

Not only were there thousands of energon cubes stored, but also it was the centre of the energon pipes which lead through the entire ship. It was one of the most vulnerable points and as such perfectly shielded from attacks from the outside and its own passengers.

And still Jazz could only watch now as disaster raced towards the room - and entered it.

"Slag," he whispered, before explosions tore through the ship. And hit the engine room.

::The engines, I mean the energon for all engines is burning!:: screamed a surprised engineer into the commline, before a single large fireball destroyed the entire last third of the ship.

Gripping the console, the Commander stared at the damage messages, then turned to his lieutenants. "Grappler, check the evacuation possibilities. Firedance, send an emergency signal on 'all' lines. Yes, even Autobot ones, we're in Autobot territory and no one else will probably come. And Hauler, can ya please explain ta me what the frag just happened?!"

Hauler, engineer and drone overseer, tried to make himself smaller even though he was a heavily armoured warframe of easily twice the height of his superior. "Eh... well... it seems that there was this oil leak report and we missed it to check it..."

"A simple oil leak," repeated the commander in disbelief, voice flat.

Hauler nodded embarrassed. "Yes."

"And it leaked for how long?"

"Well... around 53 vorns, I guess...?" Hauler gulped. "It was the oil necessary for the supply system for the cooling system... Ah, here is the report." He handed it to his superior and then made several hasty steps back, when his commander looked at him murderously.

Unbelievable. Jazz rubbed a hand over his face plates as he resisted the urge to scream or tear into something. Rather, someone. They were all going to die because of an oil leak? Was this Primus' humour or what?

A sudden explosion, much nearer than the previous ones shook them and the commander nearly fell. "Situation?"

"34 percent of the ship destroyed, 29 percent heavily damaged, 12 percent damaged," reported Grappler with a shaking voice. "Evacuation pods mostly destroyed. Sir, rescue is our only option."

It just got better and better. "Firedance, any answer?" Come on luck, be on his side one more time.

"No." She looked at him with red despairing optics.

"Try it again, an' don't stop trying till ya get a response." He turned to Grappler. "Tell the mechs that they shall all assemble at the emergency evacuation doors."

Grappler replied hastily. "Yes sir!"

Suddenly, in the back of the room a terminal exploded. Why? He didn't even dare to guess anymore. And it didn't really matter, either.

"Sir!" screamed Firedance. "A response!"

For a short moment he was relieved, before common sense returned to him. "Autobot or Decepticon?"

She deflated a bit. "Autobot."

Of course. Well. "On the screen with it." He cast a worried look at his lieutenants who had so far stayed with him. His crew was a loyal bunch of mechs, he thought with pride. "Ya all go ta the evacuation spots too. No sense in remaining here, ya can do nothing anymore."

The three were up and running in an astrosecond. The commander though turned back to the screen and smirked, trying to hide his own fears as he waited for the connection to be established. Autobot, huh? Could be worse, after all Autobots were naive wanna-be-heroes. They wouldn't let them die out here. Right? Right.

And he wouldn't let his mechs die. No matter what. He would rescue who he could, even though 14 mechs of his 52 mech crew seemed already perished. But for the rest there was hope, and he would not let anything come between a rescue and them.

With that promise he stared at the screen, knowing that this talk would be far from easy.

Finally, the screen came to life and he found himself optic to optic with a black and white Autobot that stared at him with the most neutral expression he had ever seen. Even the doorwings that just screamed Praxian were held entirely stiff. For a moment they glared at each other, than he raised his servo in greeting and said:

"Heya, ma name is Jazz and this is ma burning, exploding and completely slagged ship. Would ya please rescue ma mechs and me?"

The Autobot cocked is head. "Sure. Let me just start my ships and fly over to you and become a traitor to my cause for aiding the enemy and falling for an entirely obvious trap."

Maybe this was gonna be a bit more complicated. "It's not a trap," he gritted out.

"Ah, so Decepticon ships just catch now randomly fire?" The Autobot seemed amused. "I hadn't heard you were that desperate for mechanics yet."

"We aren't." He narrowed his optics. "It was just unfortunate chance that led ta a few explosions."

"I find it hard to believe that," countered the Praxian.

Jazz looked at the blaring alarms and knew that he had to hurry. "I'll send ya the damage report," he said curtly and plugged in Hauler's datapad. A few astroseconds later, the Autobot was reading the report on his own datapad.

"So you're drifting in space because your engine exploded?" The Praxian at the other side of the screen had the nerve to rise his optic ridges.

Jazz glared. "Yes." The Decepticon pushed a few more buttons at his side, trying to keep the ship stable enough that his mechs could prepare for an evacuation. Well, Jazz hoped there would be an evacuation. He just needed to deal with this aft of a mech.

"... and it exploded because no one ever checked up an obvious oil leak for 53 whole vorns?" Again the disbelief was clear and mocking. Jazz wanted to punch him.

"It was reported," the Special Operation mech said.

"And the report was ignored?"

"... lost."

"... and you expect me to believe this?" The Autobot sounded like he'd been told the most illogical thing in the entire universe. The calmness on the other side of the screen seemed surreal to the burning chaos surrounding Jazz.

The Decepticon made a face. "Well, yeah. Ya're an Autobot right? Shouldn't mechs like ya, wearing that ridiculous red face, believe everything they're told by mechs like me?"

After all, weren't these Autobots supposed to help those in need? (and that did not sound hypocritical in his mind, really) Also, weren't they the "gullible fools who don't know what they're doing half of the time", as Starscream had once put it?

The mech on the other side showed his irritation by twitching his doorwings. "You really shouldn't believe your own propaganda. So, any offer of proof before I close this channel?"

Jazz snarled on the other side of the screen just a nameless Decepticon ran past the open door to the command centre, screaming "We're all gonna DIE!" That seemed to elevate the panic, as more mechs a few rooms over started screaming. Annoyed, Jazz turned to the comms and cursed something at them using a distinctive Kaonite dialect. Things calmed down a little. Well, not much.

"I think that summarized all of ma credentials." Jazz turned to glare at the screen, but got distracted as countless alerts kept appearing on the HUD on his main monitor. Great, there went engines four and six.

The Praxian Autobot leaned back in his comfortable chair, from what Jazz could tell, completely at ease. "I've heard that Decepticons are marvellous actors..."

That pulled Jazz away from his monitors to look at the mech like he'd lost his mind, "Have ya NOT seen Starscream?"

"I thought him an anomaly that amuses Megatron." The mech's tone was dry, "After all, if all your troops were like that, we would've crushed you millennia ago. But maybe I was too generous in my assessment."

Jazz made a rude gesture with his middle finger at the hidden insult, before he spoke his mind: "...Are ya sure yer not a 'con in hiding? You don't fit well with those 'bots. After all, while we're talking, the ship is BURNING!" And waved with his hand, motioning for the smoke that was coming steadily from the corridor, the wailing mechs and the constant explosions in the background that Jazz suspected was engine three trying to gutter out.

The Praxian at the screen had the nerve to smile and say condescendingly, "Are you sure you're not an Autobot in hiding? As we talk, you show an extraordinary concern to your subordinates, you know."

Jazz snorted and worked a few controls when the ship made a loud groaning sound, leaning a few degrees onto its side. "Ha! Don't mistake duty with compassion!" And once one of his hands were free, he jabbed a finger at the screen, right at the mech's face. "Not a 'bot, pretty-wings. If I were, I would have berthed you long, long ago."

"Well, I could be in your berth." The smirk the Autobot gave him was nothing but predatory.

"That an offer?" And a part of Jazz actually hoped it was.

"Certainly. But it comes with a few tiny demands." The Praxian shook his finger at the camera. "I don't sleep with the enemy, as you have guessed."

Jazz finally gave up on pushing a certain button that refused to work and simply resorted to hitting the HUD screen, all the while speaking with the other mech.

"Sounding more and more like a 'con with each passing klik, mech." The screen finally lighted green, in acceptance of his command. Jazz cursed at it a few times out of spite and turned his bright red visor at the video-screen. "Demands? Let ma hear them mech."

"Maybe you'll discover our two factions are not so different after all." The Autobot said, his doorwings twitching in an emotion Jazz couldn't translate. "And the demand is simple. Every mech we rescue officially defects and will be under probation for ten vorns at my colony. After that time they can leave with a processor wipe or join."

Oh.

Oh, that fragger.

Jazz just stared at the screen for a few more kliks, openly ignoring the shouts and screams and overall chaos around him, before bursting out in laugher, leaning on the screen to stay upright: "Oh mech, ya kill me, ya know that?"

Did he think Jazz was an idiot?!

The Autobot smirked.

"Ya're either stupid or insane." Jazz shook his head, laugher dying. "No processor wipes. Rescue us, and we'll THINK about joining. How's that?"

The other mech made a sound that resembled a laugh. Only, it couldn't have been. "Cute. But I'll have you at my base." The Praxian crossed his arms. "No. No processor wipe means brig - for ten vorns. And you'll get not the chance to return. I will keep you here."

Jazz allowed himself to murmur: "And mech's even kinky", before adding more loudly: "No, no way in the pit. Rescue us, definitely NO processors wipes and a pardon of our crimes and we're Autobots at your disposal. Plus, I might add a few secrets, just ta make it more...interesting."

"Oh, I assure you, you're already interesting enough." Was that a compliment? "But I love secrets of any kind, so agreed." The Autobot placed his hands on both armrests. "Every Decepticon that isn't joining will see the brig, alright with that?"

Jazz glared as another explosion boomed behind him, the screen flickering for a few seconds until it returned more static than ever, before responding: "Crazy fragger. Come and get us. Now. As the Commanding Officer of this ship, I agree ta a probation period of ten vorns, no brig and all of us joining the stupid 'bots."

"Brig to all who harm the Autobots and show no desire to join. Last offer, I'm not suicidal." The Autobot smiled. Ugh, damn him for having such a charming smile. "See you, pretty, in - oh two kliks. Look out of the window or are they all broken already?"

For a moment Jazz didn't believe his luck - the mech actually did send ships the moment he had gotten the call, but that sneaky fragger kept quiet about it! But Jazz could understand the move - it was always bad to show the whole hand at the beginning of the negotiation. So by now, three Autobot ships were surrounding the single con ship. Well... this didn't look all that good.

Jazz, admitting defeat if he wanted to get himself and his crew out alive growled, "Fine. Brig ta all who don't play by yer rules. Ten vorns probation. No processor wipes."

The Ops mech glared at the incoming ships. His pride stung and he was almost tempted not to board them, but survival screamed more than pride at the moment.

Jazz sent out the general message over the speakers and personal comm-lines, that all personnel should board the incoming Autobot ship, and that it was not a drill of any kind. He got met with many disbelieved protests. But as a huge explosion rocked the entire ship, with all the remaining engines finally guttering, many decided that perhaps it was best they heeded the command of their Decepticon Officer. After all, they would either board that ship, or die on this one. But before Jazz himself boarded it, he returned his attention to that cheeky Praxian on the screen, who seemed far too smug to be good.

"I will be delighted to have you here," the mech said, before suddenly adding: "Say, how do you enjoy your energon? I'll have it prepared in advance, I'm sure we have a lot to discuss." With that he stood, flaring his doorwings.

"Those bots really must be stupid, if they have missed a mech like ya in their ranks." Jazz shook his head in hidden appreciation. Oh man, if only the Autobots suspected what kind of a pit-spawn they had in their ranks...

"Who said they missed me?" The Praxian bowed, and his doorwings with him. "Head Tactician Prowl, at your service, Third in Command of the Autobot army, Leader of colony Alpha Sexton."

"Whoa, yer really full of yourself there ain't ya?" And here mechs said Jazz had ego problems.

"Just a bit." Prowl said and watched as another explosion was strong enough to rock Jazz off his pedes. "I would suggest you hurry towards boarding dock three, my ship is there."

Jazz smirked as he ended a quick conversation with their CMO, who were about to transport all of the injured to the suggested shipping dock, as every surviving mech who would stand ran towards evacuation and safety.

"Mech, I don't think YA know me."

"Something I intend to change. Thoroughly. But please enlighten me." And ohh, it sounded like a challenge the visored mech would gladly accept.

"Name's Jazz. Head of Special Operations and Espionage. Also the mech who interrogated every captured 'bot for the last ten vorns. Yer lucky ya wasn't one of them. I would have had fun with ya."

Prowl nodded. "I admit, I only suspected who you were. Some of the mechs you tortured gave rather inaccurate descriptions. Demon is after all always a rather imaginary look."

Jazz puffed out his chest. "Well, I prefer sexy as the pit, but I can work with demon. But I got ta ask... Do ya even know what deal ya just made, mech?

Prowl purred, "Oh yes."

"Well then." Jazz felt a sudden lust flare in his chest. "This should be fun. I'll be waiting for that energon, Prowler."

"Definitely." Prowl raised an energon cube that used to be off-screan in a mock-toast, "Now please excuse me, I have an evacuation to lead." And he turned off the screen as Jazz made another rude gesture with his finger.

"Aft," Jazz muttered at the dark screen.

He looked up through the huge window at the incoming space ships and couldn't help but smirk. Well, today wasn't a total waste after all.


End file.
